Trump, Vaccines, And Autism

 

Our Scientist-in-Chief, the Very Stable Genius Malignant Fascist, is reportedly coming out with another one of his Executive Orders, this time one dealing with the childhood vaccine schedules and autism.  And, surprisingly, the biggest quack involved isn't Bobby "Brainworm" Kennedy, it's the MF himself.  Ars Technica reports:

The White House is drafting an executive order on the disproven link between vaccines and autism, according to independent reports from The Washington Post and Bloomberg, which both cited unnamed sources with knowledge of the efforts.

Bloomberg reported that the executive order, which is still taking shape and is subject to change, could be issued as soon as next week. The Post said the order’s drafting so far is aimed at the childhood vaccine schedule, autism research, and parental choice for vaccinations.

Dozens of high-quality studies encompassing data from millions of children worldwide have already been carried out on the topic and have consistently found no link between childhood vaccines and autism. The claim of a link stems from an unethical, fraudulent study that was retracted years ago, and its author was stripped of his medical license. [Ed.: sounds like just the kind of guy the MF would rely on for his "science."]

Leading medical groups, scientists, and autism patient advocacy groups have strongly rejected any continued pursuit of the disproven link, seeing it as fearmongering and a waste of precious time and resources to find real causes and treatments. The majority of American voters also reject the claim, and promoting the false link has been deemed “politically risky” by analysts.

Still, for Trump, holding onto the debunked and dangerous claim appears to be a personal issue. Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is an ardent anti-vaccine activist who has long promoted the false link while generally disparaging life-saving immunizations. But even Kennedy has recently shifted from publicly discussing vaccines, given the political peril.

Recent reporting indicates that the White House’s continued effort to forge a false connection between vaccines and autism is coming from Trump directly. The octogenarian reportedly wants to be remembered as the president who cured autism and believes he can achieve that by scaling back vaccines, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal.

Given the push, Trump has reportedly chastised Kennedy on multiple occasions for not doing more on the issue. Kennedy confirmed the Journal’s reporting in a combative August 2 CNN interview. (He otherwise made a barrage of false claims during the interview; a comprehensive fact check can be found here.)

As Trump and his administration continue to flout the science on vaccines, White House spokesman Kush Desai gave a statement to the Post claiming, once again, the administration would use “gold standard science” to ensure the US has the “best childhood vaccine schedule in the world.”

In a Cabinet meeting last week, Trump asked Kennedy about progress on autism research, to which Kennedy replied, “We will have an answer for you.”  (our emphasis)

The MF and his crackpot clown regime have already set back American higher education, science, medicine, and technology (other than AI!) decades, for which we and our children and grandchildren will be paying the price for years to come.  On this particular dangerously false link, the MF claims that he and third wife Melania spaced out vaccines for their son Barron, starting 20 years ago, to guard against autism.  Heather Parton Digby thinks this claim is a tell about why the MF is obsessed with the issue:

No they did not. Nobody was doing that 20 years ago. And we can be sure that he is lying because he is a pathological liar.

What this reveals is that Barron is on the spectrum, which we’ve all suspected. There is no reason that Trump would take an interest in this particular subject otherwise, and he’s had an interest in it since before Bobby Jr. came into his life. He often refers to Barron as Melania’s son and clearly does not have much of a relationship with him. If he is on the spectrum, Trump, of all people, would find that embarrassing. Being a fast-talking con artist is what he values in a man. Barron doesn’t seem to have that skill. 

It wouldn't surprise us in the least if this was true, and that being the sociopathic narcissist that he is, he can't come to grips with his youngest son being on the spectrum, incorrectly blaming vaccines.  He's the most powerful person in America, as well as a font of misinformation, ignorance, malevolence, and grievance -- a perfect candidate for launching a dangerous crusade with no care for the consequences..

(Photo:  three charlatans in a row / AP Photo, Mark Schiefelbein)

 

Quotes Of The Day -- Trump's War On Science

 

"Climate science is probably one of the most robust and scrutinized scientific fields in the history of science because of the economic implications... I can't tell you how many people looked at this and agreed with me that this was a mockery and we needed to respond to it." --  Andrew Dessler, Director of the Texas Center for Extreme Weather at Texas A&M University, commenting on the Trump Department of Energy's 151-page report, "A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate."  The Secretary of Energy, Chris "Never" Wright, is a former fossil fuel executive, of course. The DOE report was written by five people who were selected by Wright after the Malignant Fascist fired 400 scientists who had been writing the report.  Dessler organized an international group of 85 scientists who reviewed DOE's "report," and submitted comments.  The American Meteorological Society also submitted comments citing "foundational flaws" to the fossil fuel industry-friendly DOE report.

At the same Dessler link as above, Dr. John Balbus, who was formerly at the Department of Health and Human Services as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Climate Change and Health Equity, comments on HHS Secretary "Brainworm" Kennedy's lies about vaccines.  The recent firings of career scientists at the Centers for Disease Control over their refusal to support Brainworm's anti- vaccination propaganda, in addition to many hundreds of others who've gone public with concerns about politicizing science at HHS and the Environmental Protection Agency (only to face suspension or possible firing) led Dr. Balbus to comment, "When you see nearly a thousand public servants risking their livelihoods to alert the public that senior officials cannot be trusted, that is a clear warning."

The Malignant Fascist is ruining our country and killing its citizens.  How's that for an even clearer warning?!

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

As a youngster, Barry McCovey Jr. would sneak through metal gates and hide from security guards just to catch a steelhead trout in Blue Creek amid northwestern California redwoods.

Since time immemorial, his ancestors from the Yurok Tribe had fished, hunted and gathered in this watershed flanked by coastal forests. But for more than 100 years, these lands were owned and managed by timber companies, severing the tribe’s access to its homelands.

When McCovey started working as a fisheries technician, the company would let him go there to do his job.

“Snorkeling Blue Creek ... I felt the significance of that place to myself and to our people, and I knew then that we had to do whatever we could to try and get that back,” McCovey said.

After a 23-year effort and $56 million, that became reality.

Roughly 73 square miles (189 square kilometers) of homelands have been returned to the Yurok, more than doubling the tribe’s land holdings, according to a deal announced Thursday.  Completion of the land-back conservation deal along the lower Klamath River — a partnership with Western Rivers Conservancy and other environmental groups — is being called the largest in California history. 

The Yurok Tribe had 90% of its territory taken during the California Gold Rush in the mid-1800s, suffering massacres and disease from settlers.

“To go from when I was a kid and 20 years ago even, from being afraid to go out there to having it be back in tribal hands … is incredible,” said McCovey, director of the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Department. [snip]

Beth Rose Middleton Manning, a University of California, Davis professor of Native American Studies, said Indigenous people’s perspective — living in relation with the lands, waterways and wildlife — is becoming widely recognized, and is a stark contrast to Western views.

“Management of a forest to grow conifers for sale is very different from thinking about the ecosystem and the different plants and animals and people as part of it and how we all play a role,” she said.

The Yurok people will now manage these lands and waterways. The tribe’s plans include reintroducing fire as a forest management tool, clearing lands for prairie restoration, removing invasive species and planting trees while providing work for some of the tribe’s more than 5,000 members and helping restore salmon and wildlife...

There's not much "good" in the news lately, but stories like this keep us hopeful in the midst of the bad and the ugly...

The bad:

Tear gas was fired at protesters in Los Angeles on Sunday when some demonstrators moved close to National Guard troops and shouted insults at them, hours after President Donald Trump’s extraordinary deployment of the military over the objections of the governor and mayor.

The confrontation broke out as hundreds of people protested in front of the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, where several of the newly-arrived National Guard troops stood shoulder to shoulder behind plastic riot shields.

Video showed uniformed officers shooting off the smoke-filled canisters as they advanced into the street, forcing protesters to retreat. It was not immediately clear what prompted the use of chemical irritants or which law enforcement agency fired them.

Minutes later, loud popping sounds erupted again, as some protesters chanted “go home” and “shame.” One person was taken to the ground by uniformed officers. Another appeared to be bleeding from their head. 

Around 300 National Guard troops arrived in Los Angeles early Sunday on orders from Trump, who accused Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats of failing to stanch recent protests targeting immigration agents.

The move appeared to be the first time in decades that a state’s national guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration’s mass deportation efforts. 

The deployment followed two days of protests that began Friday in downtown Los Angeles before spreading on Saturday to Paramount, a heavily Latino city south of the city, and neighboring Compton.

As federal agents set up a staging area Saturday near a Home Depot in Paramount, demonstrators attempted to block Border Patrol vehicles, with some hurling rocks and chunks of cement. In response, agents in riot gear unleashed tear gas, flash-bang explosives and pepper balls.

Tensions were high after a series of sweeps by immigration authorities the previous day, as the weeklong tally of immigrant arrests in the city climbed above 100. A prominent union leader was arrested while protesting and accused of impeding law enforcement...

He's not just picking a fight with the biggest (Democratic) state in the Union.  This, as Sen. Bernie Sanders said, is “a president moving this country rapidly into authoritarianism.”

The ugly: 

The Trump administration’s cancellation of $766 million in contracts to develop mRNA vaccines against potential pandemic flu viruses is the latest blow to national defense, former health security officials said. They warned that the U.S. could be at the mercy of other countries in the next pandemic.

“The administration’s actions are gutting our deterrence from biological threats,” said Beth Cameron, a senior adviser to the Brown University Pandemic Center and a former director at the White House National Security Council. “Canceling this investment is a signal that we are changing our posture on pandemic preparedness,” she added, “and that is not good for the American people.”

Flu pandemics killed up to 103 million people worldwide last century, researchers estimate.

In anticipation of the next big one, the U.S. government began bolstering the nation’s pandemic flu defenses during the George W. Bush administration. These strategies were designed by the security council and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority at the Department of Health and Human Services, among other agencies. The plans rely on rolling out vaccines rapidly in a pandemic. Moving fast hinges on producing vaccines domestically, ensuring their safety, and getting them into arms across the nation through the public health system.

The Trump administration is undermining each of these steps as it guts health agencies, cuts research and health budgets, and issues perplexing policy changes, health security experts said.  [snip]

Limited supplies means the United States would have to wait in line for mRNA vaccines made abroad. States and cities may compete against one another for deals with outside governments and companies, like they did for medical equipment at the peak of the covid pandemic.

“I fear we will once again see the kind of hunger games we saw in 2020,” Cameron said...

"Hunger games."  What an apt description of the Malignant Fascist's actions as he sabotages everything that's been created for the benefit of our country's health, prosperity, and security.  We're entering the "new  Dark Age."